ce of mind he did not
dare. He thought that he knew now what it was he had seen in the depth
of her eyes, but there seemed to be nothing that he could do to help.

That evening after supper Honey Krause called to him when he was
starting down to the bunk-house with the other men. What she said
was that she still had his guitar and mandolin, and that they needed
exercise. What she looked was the challenge of a born coquette. In the
kitchen dishes were rattling, but after they were washed there would be
a little leisure, perhaps, for the kitchen drudge. Bud's impulse to make
his sore hands an excuse for refusing evaporated. It might not be wise
to place himself deliberately in the way of getting a hurt--but youth
never did stop to consult a sage before following the lure of a woman's
eyes.

He called back to Honey that those instruments ought to have been put in
the hayfield, where there was more exercise than the men could use. "You
boys ought to come and see me safe through with it," he added to the
loitering group around him. "I'm afraid of women."

They laughed and two or three went with him. Lew went on to the corral
and presently appeared on horseback, riding up to the kitchen and
leaving his horse standing at the corner while he went inside and talked
to the woman he had called Marian.

Bud was carrying his guitar outside, where it was cooler, when he heard
the fellow's arrogant voice. The dishes ceased rattling for a
minute, and there was a sharp exclamation, stifled but unmistakable.
Involuntarily Bud made a movement in that direction, when Honey's voice
stopped him with a subdued laugh.

"That's only Lew and Mary Ann," she explained carelessly. "They have a
spat every time they come within gunshot of each other."

The lean fellow who had driven the mower, and whose name was Jerry
Myers, edged carelessly close to Bud and gave him a nudge with his
elbow, and a glance from under his eyebrows by way of emphasis. He
turned his head slightly, saw that Honey had gone into the house, and
muttered just above a whisper, "Don't see or hear anything. It's all the
help you can give her. And for Lord's sake don't let on to Honey like
you--give a cuss whether it rains or not, so long 's it don't pour too
hard the night of the dance."

Bud looked up at the darkening sky speculatively, and tried not to hear
the voices in the kitchen, one of which was brutally harsh while the
other told of hate and fear suppressed under g